Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i Macworld

With the release of the 2023 MacBook Pro (page 50) and the 2023 Mac mini (page 64), the shape of the second generation of Apple silicon on Mac has been revealed. It is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a replay of the first generation: Apple has segmented its chips into a few different varieties. As with the M1 generation, the new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips are closely related to each other and to the M2 chip introduced last summer. They’re all based on the same foundation, but each chip has some different characteristics. When it comes time to choose how much to pay for a Mac mini or a MacBook Pro, those differences matter. ROUND 1: M2 VS. M1 Before I compare the M2 Pro and M2 Max, it’s…

Apple’s efforts to protect a user’s data are a major selling point for customers. If your MacBook is stolen, it’s extremely difficult for the thief to bypass the laptop’s security measures and access the data as long as you’ve taken advantage of the tools at your disposal to lock down your machine. However, those same security measures can render a Mac useless in a legitimate sale on the secondhand market. A report by Vice highlights the frustrations of an independent computer repair specialist and refurbisher, John Bumstead, who tweeted about the “millions” of MacBooks that have been “condemned…to death” because of Apple’s Activation Lock feature. Activation Lock associates a device with an Apple ID, and is automatically turned on when Find My Mac is activated within the Apple ID settings on your…

Apple unveiled a new emphasis on saving the lives of its customers in September 2022, with a Crash Detection feature joining the existing array of safety and emergency functions on the Apple Watch and iPhone. Most users will regard Crash Detection as a handy background feature: something that offers peace of mind while hopefully never being called into action. But you may feel differently if you start to experience false positives, as has been anecdotally reported by some roller-coaster riders as well as skiers. Reports suggest that emergency services are being inundated with automated emergency calls from the slopes. If your iPhone or Apple Watch mistakenly believes it has detected a crash and you somehow don’t notice, you could end up in the embarrassing situation of having to explain to emergency responders…

In the fall of 2021, Apple’s 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros made a grand entrance into the Mac lineup, and made an instant impact, combining processing prowess with a sophisticated redesign. If you were aching for a new high-end MacBook Pro, the 2021 release offered soothing relief. But maybe you decided to wait a little longer. Maybe you thought it would be wise to let a generation of Apple silicon pass so the company can work out the kinks and app developers can catch up with native software. Or maybe you just weren’t convinced this whole thing was really going to work, despite Apple’s past success with silicon transitions. Whatever the reason, let me tell you, for most people, there isn’t a reason to wait any longer. The transition has been…

While the attention in iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS 13.1 Ventura might be on Advanced Data Protection (ADP), an option to extend end-to-end encryption for nearly all your data synced via and stored at iCloud, don’t overlook a sleeper feature thrown in with those releases. You can separately disable web access to your iCloud data. You might decide that in the interests of security, you don’t want to have the slightest possibility someone might obtain your account credentials in such a way that they could log in at iCloud.com, even if they couldn’t manage to log in to another Apple device. With two-factor authentication, it shouldn’t be feasible, but there’s more potential for a web exploit than a device-based one. To disable web access to iCloud.com data in any…

I almost titled this review “Everything but 8-Track,” but that would’ve been starting on a negative note for what I consider to be a very positive product: Victor Audio’s Cosmopolitan 8-in-1 Music Center. It’s the most versatile of the more than a dozen nostalgic, legacy-media playback devices the company has to offer. Versatile in not only playing vinyl (at 33, 45, and even 78 rpm), cassettes, CDs, and AM/FM radio, it can also digitize any of that material to USB or SD media in MP3 format. It will even record to cassette if that’s of interest. About the only trick missing is burning audio to CD (and the aforementioned 8-track), but that’s a far more complicated process because of all the formatting involved. In truth, I had no desire to…

With wireless earbuds, you can put one in its charging case and use the other by itself when you want to have just a single ear occupied. How can you simulate the same effect with wired earbuds? Easy: Just use an accessibility feature in iOS and iPadOS. Here’s how to make this work. 1. iOS 16 Settings Go to Settings → Accessibility → Audio/Visual (in the Hearing section). 2. Mono Audio Enable Mono Audio. 3. Audio Balance Under Balance, drag the slider to the far left (for left only) or far right (for right only). There’s no way to set this as an audio profile or other method you could tap to move in and out of. When and if you want to resume balanced stereo sound, drag that slider…

The march of Apple silicon is not slowing down. To power the new high-end Mac mini and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro systems, Apple has unveiled the all-new M2 Pro and M2 Max processors, taking all the improvements of the A15 and A16 processors and applying them to the Mac chips, resulting in a significant boost in performance over the M1 line. Apple claims the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips bring 20 percent better CPU performance and 30 percent faster GPU performance than the M1 Pro and M1 Max. They also include the newer Neural Engine, which is up to 40 percent faster than that in the M1 series. As impressive as those claims are, they are also unsurprising and a bit disappointing. Some of the more exciting rumors about more…

Before there was the Mac, there was the Lisa, Apple’s first computer to feature a graphical user interface. The Lisa was released 40 years ago this week, and to celebrate the anniversary, the Computer History Museum—which calls Lisa “Apple’s most important flop”—is offering the source code of the Lisa software free to download. The download is a mere 7MB compressed, 30MB expanded. You do, however, have to agree to a license agreement before you can get the download, and provide your name and email address. And then once you download it, you’ll need to figure out how to run it. A look at the Lisa GUI tells you instantly where the Mac has its roots. In fact, the Mac’s desktop still takes its cues from the Lisa, with pulldown menus across…

It was just a few short years ago when we told you about a then-upcoming wireless technology called Wi-Fi 6. At the time, what was once known as 802.11ax was henceforth given a much more consumer-friendly name, and previous convoluted Wi-Fi standards got similar names: 802.11ac became Wi-Fi 5, 802.11n became Wi-Fi 4, and so on. And now we have an even newer name: Wi-Fi 6E. In short, it’s an updated version of Wi-Fi 6 that includes access to the new 6GHz frequency band. But while it doesn’t introduce new features over Wi-Fi 6, this new frequency band could be a big deal and will make a major impact on the future of wireless networking. Wi-Fi 6E is starting to show up in Apple products already; it’s not in any…

If you thought bag-pocalypse or luggage-ageddon was over when summer 2022 closed, after airlines mislaid and misdirected oceans of suitcases and checked items, think again. The recent severe weather that crossed left “thousands of pieces of luggage…strewn about airport lobbies,” as one newspaper reported. Apple’s AirTag and third-party Find My items that use the same crowdsourced network can be your best friend when a bag goes astray. Hundreds of news articles cropped up in 2022 about savvy travelers dropping one of these trackers in a bag and finding their needle in a haystack, allowing them to be reunited with their clothes, gifts they were bringing to their destination, or other valuables and necessities. While there are significant ongoing privacy concerns about the use of AirTags to track people without their knowledge or…

And then there was one. With the introduction of the new Mac mini, Apple officially sells only one Mac that still uses an Intel chip—the Mac Pro. While the low-end Mac mini got an upgrade to the M1 processor just over two years ago, Apple continued to sell the 2018 Intel-based model as a more expensive option. Apple has now updated the low-end model to the M2 and replaced that Intel-based model with a new M2 Pro Mac mini. The M2 model gained Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 and has been reduced in price from $699 to $599. It’s a fine entry-level system. The M2 Pro model adds two additional Thunderbolt 4 ports (for a total of four), upgrades the HDMI port to HDMI 2.1 (bringing support 4K at 240Hz…

The Apple ID account system is rigid and inflexible. Once you’ve created an account with an Apple-controlled address at me.com or mac.com in the old days or icloud.com over the last several years, you can’t change it. (It’s trivial to change if you use a third-party email address.) What happens if you change your name through marriage or divorce, by preference, or for other reasons? Or you are tired of (or embarrassed by) an address you might have named in your youth and want a more sedate incoming mail label? Apple lets you create aliases. (I first wrote about this in 2019, and the steps have changed with Apple’s relaunch of iCloud.com last year.) Instead of abandoning your Apple ID, you can add a new address and make some changes at…

Anker’s Soundcore brand made its name with speakers that punch far above their weight, delivering audio quality that matches or surpasses other speakers that cost a whole lot more. The company’s speakers emphasize clarity at high volume and offer an optional bass boost that can shake the rafters. The Soundcore Rave Party 2 is the largest portable Bluetooth speaker in Anker’s Soundcore portfolio. It’s being marketed through retailers like Amazon and Walmart, but is curiously absent from Anker’s own online store. Don’t let that absence fool you—this is one of the company’s very best speakers. BUILD QUALITY The speaker has rubberized feat on two different sides, so it can be used either vertically or horizontally. While on its side for horizontal use, the speaker measures 7.30×7.20×15.50 inches (H×D×W) and weighs a…

HOW TO REMOVE A PERSONAL SCREEN TIME PASSCODE WHEN YOU’VE FORGOTTEN IT Screen Time is a somewhat useful feature to help limit time on screens, online, and, particularly, apps. It’s used by parents for kids, but you can also use it for yourself. With Screen Time enabled, you can choose your own limits. You can go one step further by setting a Screen Time passcode—you might want to have to enter a passcode instead of just tapping when you exceed limits you’ve set for yourself. (You might even ask someone else to set the code and not tell you if you need some additional, external help.) When you set up a Screen Time passcode for your iCloud account, Apple prompts you to enter an Apple ID and its password to…

Bear with me: This is, on the face of it, a weird idea. But is it possible Apple is making its Macs too powerful? OK, OK, I know: How could having a computer that’s too powerful be a bad thing? But after this week’s announcement of the new MacBook Pro and Mac mini, I found myself wondering whether the company has painted itself into a corner, vis-à-vis its impressive hardware. It is, admittedly, a strange state of affairs when you find yourself wondering if Apple has maybe gotten too good at making computers that are so powerful they are overkill for the purposes of most tasks, but you don’t have to look too far to see another example of this same phenomenon. This is a struggle that Apple’s long contended with…

Though so many antivirus and security products charge annual subscriptions, there are still free options out there with few or no strings attached. The freebies typically offer more basic or limited protection, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth using. One such product that fits the bill is AVG Antivirus for Mac. Designed to block viruses and spyware, AVG offers real-time and on-demand scanning to prevent malware from infecting your Mac. If you are happy to pay there are plenty of options—see our Best Antivirus for Mac round up—but for a free program AVG covers all the bases, blocking viruses and malware from websites, downloads, and email attachments. AVG can scan applications and files on your Mac for potential threats and automatically remove them. Running in the background, the program’s…

Apple’s built-in apps like Maps and Messages can provide helpful information about businesses in your area, but what if you own a business? How do you manage the content they’re showing? Apple on Wednesday unveiled a way to do that with Apple Business Connect, a free tool that business owners can use to claim and customize their location place cards for Apple Maps, Messages, Siri, Wallet, and other apps. But Maps is where Business Connect will be most useful. Users can edit basic information such as the business name, address, and description, and they will also be able to add logos and photos. Users can also add new “actions” such as orders, reservations, and special promotions, and businesses can incorporate actions with online services such as Instacart, Booking.com, and OpenTable.…

An AirTag case can meet many different purposes: stealth, robustness, deterrence, and ease of attachment (and ease of battery replacement). The ElevationLab TagVault: Surface packages up a few of those characteristics by providing an easy way to permanently attach a somewhat indestructible AirTag case to anything that has a small amount of available flat surface. The Surface uses a powerful adhesive, 3M VHB, which starts strong and, 3M says, becomes increasingly permanent over time. ElevationLab doesn’t ship additional adhesive stickers with Surface, and that may be why: Choose wisely how you place it. (Some competing products also use 3M VHB and do provide additional precut adhesive stickers, so there’s some wiggle room.) To install a Surface, simply unscrew the top of the case and place the AirTag inside. The case’s glass-filled…

Apple this week released iOS 16.3 and macOS Ventura 13.2, bringing an overdue feature to our Apple devices: security key support for Apple IDs. That means you can use a USB-C, Lightning, or NFC dongle as the second factor of authentication instead of the six-digit verification code Apple usually sends to another device. As Apple explains, a physical key strengthens the two-factor authentication process and helps prevent codes from being intercepted or requested by an attacker. With a security key, your account authentication is literally in your hands and no one else has access to it. However, if you lose your trusted security keys, you could be locked out of your account permanently. To prevent that from happening, Apple requires two FIDO Certified security keys to use the new feature…

Smart folders are a highly useful feature in the Finder to provide live search results based on simple to extremely complex criteria. For example, if you want to keep tabs on large files on your drives, you can create a smart folder to find all files above 1GB. Or you could do as I did and recreate the missing All My Files search that Apple removed from the Finder for no apparent reason with macOS 10.13 High Sierra. However, smart folders have an irritating aspect: As you create one, you can opt to add it to the Sidebar in the Finder. If you don’t choose to add it at that moment, you are likely mystified as to why you can’t create a link later. It has to do with how Apple…

Bowers & Wilkins has updated its flagship wireless, in-ear headphone. And while this isn’t a from-the-ground-up redesign—the B&W Pi7 S2 use the excellent same drivers as the model that shipped in 2021—improvements in a host of other areas result in better battery life and longer Bluetooth range. More importantly, if your primary consideration is the quality of an earbud’s audio reproduction, they deliver fantastic listening experiences. Your decision could get more complicated as you consider other features, such as active noise cancellation, EQ options, and price. Bowers & Wilkins has helped define the British hi-fi audio sound for nearly six decades with its highly regarded loudspeakers. The company entered the powered speaker market with its iPod-compatible Zeppelin speaker in 2006 (since updated to support Bluetooth and AirPlay) and added wired…